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Topic: Walk away splits ? (Read 7073 times)

How do you do walk away splits with queen cells or with out ? Do you lock them in when making split ? Do you take them 2 miles away or move the hives around ? Do you try to put only house bees in the splits and as few workers as possable ? How do you do it ?

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Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

I plan to move the portion of mine without a queen about 12 miles, but it's because there are some genetics in that area I'd like to make use of, if the drones are up to the task. The half that still has a queen may be moved to the same place next year in case they want to supercede. (she's about one year old now - give or take a few weeks).

Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

By definition a walk away has no queen cell or new queen. It's just a split where they will raise their own.

Then I gave you a link with an in depth treatment of the subject that covers every other question you asked and many you didn't. But if you missed them I will elaborate here.

> Do you lock them in when making split ?

I do not. It is one method that some people use, but it tends to be too hot and they tend to overheat and shaking in a few extra bees does better with less stress. Another method is to face both new halves toward the old location so they will tend to be more evenly divided.

> Do you take them 2 miles away or move the hives around ?

I never have. Some people do.

> Do you try to put only house bees in the splits and as few workers as possable ?

You want nurse bees in the new location so they won't drift.

> How do you do it ?

Any bees on brood comb tend to be nurse bees and tend to stay where you put them.

names of splits aside, it is basically also what you can do when your hive is going to swarm, get the queen out, but also make use of those extra swarm cells in a hive, use them to make up other splits.

If you make sure that you have enough bees in the split you can leave them, just shake some extras in there, a lot of the bees will go back to the old hive, but enough will stay. And if you don't give them the starts of a queen you want to make sure you have plenty of bees because it takes a lot of bees to raise a healthy queen. For example, you wouldn't want to do a walk away split with, say, 2 frames of bees.

By definition a walk away has no queen cell or new queen. It's just a split where they will raise their own.

Then I gave you a link with an in depth treatment of the subject that covers every other question you asked and many you didn't. But if you missed them I will elaborate here.

> Do you lock them in when making split ?

I do not. It is one method that some people use, but it tends to be too hot and they tend to overheat and shaking in a few extra bees does better with less stress. Another method is to face both new halves toward the old location so they will tend to be more evenly divided.

> Do you take them 2 miles away or move the hives around ?

I never have. Some people do.

> Do you try to put only house bees in the splits and as few workers as possable ?

You want nurse bees in the new location so they won't drift.

> How do you do it ?

Any bees on brood comb tend to be nurse bees and tend to stay where you put them.

Michael,I'm sorry if i'm not all here.Can you explain ? Here you say,put them facing toward the old location. Do you leave your queen with some brood and eggs and bees in the old location ? How far away from the front of the old hive do you put the split hives ?

The simple version is to make sure you have some eggs in each of the deeps and put them facing toward the old location. In other words put a bottom board on the left facing the left side of the hive and one on the right facing the right side of the hive and put one deep on each and maybe an empty deep on top of that. Put the tops on and walk away.

Michael,In the even split,even split would be two hives,right ? If you take half,that means you end up with two hives,right ? Here you say,Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive. Both at the side of the old would be three hives. Do you leave any bees in the old hive ? How far away from the old hive do you put both hives facing ?

An even split. You take half of everything and divide it up. Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive so the returning bees aren't sure which one to come back to. In a week or so, swap places to equalize the drift to the one with the queen.

Michael,In this walk away split,Where do you put your nucs,say if you split into 3 or 4 nucs ?

a walk away split. You take a frame of eggs, two frames of emerging brood and two frames of pollen and honey and put them in a 5 frame nuc, shake in some extra nurse bees (making sure you don't get the queen), put the lid on and walk away. Come back in four weeks and see if the queen is laying.

Michael,In swarm control,Where do you place your split queen nuc when you move her to a nuc ? How and where do you place all the nucs ? Do you put a frame of eggs in with the queen or just capped brood ? Do you place the queen nuc back in the same place as the old hive or in a different location ?

Swarm control split. Ideally you want to prevent swarming and not have to split. But if there are queen cells I usually put every frame with any queen cells in it's own nuc with a frame of honey and let them rear a queen. This usually relieves the pressure to swarm and gives me very nice queens. But even better, put the old queen in a nuc with a frame of brood and a frame of honey and leave one frame with queen cells at the old hive to simulate a swarm. Many bees are now gone and so is the old queen. Some people do the other kinds of splits (even walk away etc.) in order to prevent swarming. I think it's better to just keep the brood nest open.

« Last Edit: March 10, 2010, 12:41:27 PM by Joelel »

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Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

OK folks,My main problem is, Where and how and how far apart do you place hives (nucs) when you split,so you don't get all the workers back in the same hive ?

« Last Edit: March 10, 2010, 03:31:06 PM by Joelel »

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Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

I am sorry but you are making this way to hard for yourself. All you have to do is find your queen (if there is one). Put her into a hive that is set right next to the 1st hive. Put a couple of frames of capped brood and honey in with her. I would shake a couple of frames of bees in with her. Now you have 2 hives. One with queen, one without. Right next to each other. If you feel(after a few days) the hive with the queen needs more bees,shake more in, or swap the hives around so old is in the new hives place, and the new is in the old hives place. Not much to it.Your workers will go back to the old hive. But the bees you are shaking in with the queen are mostly nurse bee, because workers are out working. Nurse bees will become workers and stay with new hive.I do splits when I have 1 1/2 to 2 suppers full of brood.If you are concern about workers returning to the old hive, place some kind of an obstruction in front of the knew hive. i.e., branches. So workers coming out have to reorient themselves.

I am sorry but you are making this way to hard for yourself. All you have to do is find your queen (if there is one). Put her into a hive that is set right next to the 1st hive. Put a couple of frames of capped brood and honey in with her. I would shake a couple of frames of bees in with her. Now you have 2 hives. One with queen, one without. Right next to each other. If you feel(after a few days) the hive with the queen needs more bees,shake more in, or swap the hives around so old is in the new hives place, and the new is in the old hives place. Not much to it.Your workers will go back to the old hive. But the bees you are shaking in with the queen are mostly nurse bee, because workers are out working. Nurse bees will become workers and stay with new hive.I do splits when I have 1 1/2 to 2 suppers full of brood.If you are concern about workers returning to the old hive, place some kind of an obstruction in front of the knew hive. i.e., branches. So workers coming out have to reorient themselves.

Hard for myself ? Give it up,people like you is what makes things hard by saying I make it hard on myself,when I want to know something like where and how and how far away to place splits. Get over yourself.

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Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

i split 2 hives this week.moved the queen and her bees around 10 to 15 feet away, then placed the queenless portion in place of the old hive.the queenless hives loaded up with returning workers no problem.

really not that hard.bailey

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most often i find my greatest source of stress to be OPS ( other peoples stupidity )

It is better to keep ones mouth shut and be thought of as a fool than to open ones mouth and in so doing remove all doubt.

Here you go Joelel; set up two nuc boxes next to the original hive, one of them 12 " away and facing the same direction as the original hive; the other nuc 36" away and facing the same direction as the original hive. Find the queen in the original hive; when you find her isolate that frame until you're done with the splits (just drop the frame & queen in an empty box temporarily). Now remove a frame with eggs, open brood and bees and place it in the nuc box 12" away. Find another frame with eggs, open brood and bees and place in the nuc box 36" away. Now remove a frame with capped/emerging brood and bees and place in the closest nuc. Find another frame with capped/emerging brood and bees and place in farthest nuc. Repeat the last 2 steps so that you now have 2 frames of capped/emerging brood and one frame of eggs/open brood in each nuc. Now place a frame of pollen and honey next to the frame of open brood in each box. If using 4 frame nucs put the lids on the nucs. If using 5 frame nucs put another frame of honey or pollen and honey in each nuc. Put the lids on the nucs. Now replace the original queen back into the original hive (the hive that's 12" away from one nuc and 36" away from the other nuc). Replace the pulled frames with drawn comb, if available, or foundation. If you feel that the nucs don't have enough bees then shake some more in! Most of the bees in the nuc boxes now are nurse bees which is the type of bee needed to raise a new queen. The field bees will go home to the original hive. Who cares? Most were out foraging anyway while you were making a mess of their hive. You now have two new nucs, full of nurse bees, one placed 12" from the original hive and one placed 36" from the old hive. Now, put out your smoker, pack up your tools, say goodbye to the bees, and go home. Don't come back for a week or so; then just peek in and see if you have queen cells. If not, put some more eggs in! Simple!!!

Chill out - JsMob was saying you are over thinking it, if you aren't getting your questions answered with all those trying to help, then it is YOU with the communication problem, not them. Watch the attitude, I know for a fact it isn't the first time I've said THAT to you - hope you understand this reply.

Please enjoy the forum, and if it has helped you in any way, we hope that a small donation can be made to support our FULLY member supported forum. You will never see advertisements here, and that is because of the generous members who have made our forum possible. We are in our second decade as a beekeeping forum and all thanks to member support. At the top right of every page is a donations link. Please help if you can.

Any reason why it has to be a nuc? It seems to me that if you transfer over 4 full frames into an empty deep with 6 empty frames, that should work as well. I think the explainations are good to be in excrutiating detail.

Remember as a new beek of how it felt to dump in your first package and the fear of not doing it right. Then managing your pets/slaves to make sure they are healthy and prosper-- almost like being a new parent.

Any reason why it has to be a nuc? It seems to me that if you transfer over 4 full frames into an empty deep with 6 empty frames, that should work as well. I think the explainations are good to be in excrutiating detail.

It doesn't need to be a nuc. When I first got started, I didn't have any 5 frame boxes, so I just used 10 frame ones. It worked alright.

But, you need to keep in mind that when you do a walkaway split the colony you are creating won't have a queen laying for up to a month. That is a substantial period of time for the hive numbers to deteriorate. This shrinking bee size will make the hive susceptible to parasites. Down south that means SHB and wax moths will be moving in. If you use a 5 frame box instead of a 10 frame one, the smaller colony has a better chance of defending the hive from 'invaders'.

Michael,Tell me one thing,do you place them facing toward the old location or Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive ?

The simple version is to make sure you have some eggs in each of the deeps and put them facing toward the old location. In other words put a bottom board on the left facing the left side of the hive and one on the right facing the right side of the hive and put one deep on each and maybe an empty deep on top of that. Put the tops on and walk away.

An even split. You take half of everything and divide it up. Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive so the returning bees aren't sure which one to come back to. In a week or so, swap places to equalize the drift to the one with the queen.

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Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

Here you go Joelel; set up two nuc boxes next to the original hive, one of them 12 " away and facing the same direction as the original hive; the other nuc 36" away and facing the same direction as the original hive. Find the queen in the original hive; when you find her isolate that frame until you're done with the splits (just drop the frame & queen in an empty box temporarily). Now remove a frame with eggs, open brood and bees and place it in the nuc box 12" away. Find another frame with eggs, open brood and bees and place in the nuc box 36" away. Now remove a frame with capped/emerging brood and bees and place in the closest nuc. Find another frame with capped/emerging brood and bees and place in farthest nuc. Repeat the last 2 steps so that you now have 2 frames of capped/emerging brood and one frame of eggs/open brood in each nuc. Now place a frame of pollen and honey next to the frame of open brood in each box. If using 4 frame nucs put the lids on the nucs. If using 5 frame nucs put another frame of honey or pollen and honey in each nuc. Put the lids on the nucs. Now replace the original queen back into the original hive (the hive that's 12" away from one nuc and 36" away from the other nuc). Replace the pulled frames with drawn comb, if available, or foundation. If you feel that the nucs don't have enough bees then shake some more in! Most of the bees in the nuc boxes now are nurse bees which is the type of bee needed to raise a new queen. The field bees will go home to the original hive. Who cares? Most were out foraging anyway while you were making a mess of their hive. You now have two new nucs, full of nurse bees, one placed 12" from the original hive and one placed 36" from the old hive. Now, put out your smoker, pack up your tools, say goodbye to the bees, and go home. Don't come back for a week or so; then just peek in and see if you have queen cells. If not, put some more eggs in! Simple!!!

Right simple,thanks for telling me where to put the splits,that was simple.

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Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

Chill out - JsMob was saying you are over thinking it, if you aren't getting your questions answered with all those trying to help, then it is YOU with the communication problem, not them. Watch the attitude, I know for a fact it isn't the first time I've said THAT to you - hope you understand this reply.

Yes I know,I wanted to know where to place the splits but that's making it hard on myself and it's simple,I guess I should know that without learning ? Thanks my friend . Sorry for over thinking,think i'll just put the splits on a boat in the middle of a 40 mile wide lake. Thanks

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Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

Any reason why it has to be a nuc? It seems to me that if you transfer over 4 full frames into an empty deep with 6 empty frames, that should work as well. I think the explainations are good to be in excrutiating detail.

Remember as a new beek of how it felt to dump in your first package and the fear of not doing it right. Then managing your pets/slaves to make sure they are healthy and prosper-- almost like being a new parent.

You got it but it's simple and i'm making it hard on myself you know.

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Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

Boy... this is complicated!...and all this time I thought that a "Walk Away Split" was when one takes a hive, pulls out frames, brood, honey & pollen and puts them in another box, resulting in two boxes about even in brood, pollen and honey, fill up the empty spaces in each box with new frames with foundation (or not.) and then the Good Lord takes over and you get to........ walk away!I thought that splitting was done so that one did not have to get a ladder to go fetch a swarm in some tree somewhere.

Yes one box will have a queen and one box will not, unless of course you kill the queen when you throw those frames around.But natural evolution will make life in the hive want to carry on, reduce the entrances in both boxes, it gives the bees a fair advantage in defending the hive, if there is enough honey and pollen you won't have to feed them.Yes one hive will be slower to get kicking again, 16 days to new queen, four to five days before she get her spermathica upgraded and then...she'll get to play for a couple of days, eggs not quite where they should be but she'll get the hang of it and start laying 12 to 15 hundred eggs a day...Now you don't expect to harvest from either of those this year or do you? If you do, you'll notice that one is doing really good and one is doing not as well...harvest from the good one...personally I like to wait until the warmer days of spring to harvest...that way they use what they need and you can have the rest...Again you take a good hive, split it and walk away...that is a walk away split. Where you put the hive...who cares? front facing east west south or north...won't keep the bees from using that water proof shelter...2 inches, two miles.. again, up to you the bees don't care. Yes the foragers get to go back to the original location...however, every day, 12 to 15 hundred new foragers emerge and find their way back to the hive where they came from that day...so split and walk away.

BTW, I don't think that putting a hive on a boat is really a good idea, it makes checking on he girls a bit too much work...I just put mine on cinder blocks, outside. Where really does not matter much, they have wings, they will find food. Your job as a beekeeper is to try to not kill the bees, enjoy the honey, the pollen and the wax... and the simplicity of it all.Or just buy some local honey from some other beekeeper. Ultimately that is the easiest way to get the golden nectar of the Gods!...though not really the most enjoyable... for me.But remember it took millions of years for bees to evolve, we humans weren't around then to mess with them, then...they know how to live, the human race still has to come around to living in a sustainable way. They (the bees) produce more than they consume in their lives, we do not. Roads don't count, neither does pollution and urban sprawl .So...split and walk away. It's that simple.

Please enjoy the forum, and if it has helped you in any way, we hope that a small donation can be made to support our FULLY member supported forum. You will never see advertisements here, and that is because of the generous members who have made our forum possible. We are in our second decade as a beekeeping forum and all thanks to member support. At the top right of every page is a donations link. Please help if you can.

>Here you say,put them facing toward the old location. Do you leave your queen with some brood and eggs and bees in the old location ?

I usually leave nothing at the old location if doing this method of equalizing. You set a bottom on each side of the orginal hive and face the entrace toward the old hive and divide it up.

> How far away from the front of the old hive do you put the split hives ?

Anywhere from touching (my usual method when not bothering to face the old location) or the other side of the world or anything in between.

>The simple version is to make sure you have some eggs in each of the deeps and put them facing toward the old location. In other words put a bottom board on the left facing the left side of the hive and one on the right facing the right side of the hive and put one deep on each and maybe an empty deep on top of that. Put the tops on and walk away.

Exactly.

>In the even split,even split would be two hives,right ?

Probably, but that doesn't mean a booming hive couldn't be evenly split into three, but that would be norm. It's all playing it by ear. The stronger the split is the quickerr it takes off.

>If you take half,that means you end up with two hives,right ?

That wold be typical, yes.

＞Here you say,Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive. Both at the side of the old would be three hives.

Ｔｈｅ ｏｌｄ ｈｉｖｅ ｉｓ ｎｏ ｌｏｎｇｅｒ ｔｈｅｒｅ．

＞ Do you leave any bees in the old hive ?

Ｎｏ．

． How far away from the old hive do you put both hives facing ?

Ｒｉｇｈｔ ｎｅｘｔ ｄｏｏｒ．

＞Michael,In this walk away split,Where do you put your nucs,say if you split into 3 or 4 nucs ?

Ａｎｙｗｈｅｒｅ ｙｏｕ ｌｉｋｅ．

＞In swarm control,Where do you place your split queen nuc when you move her to a nuc ?

Ｔｈｅｒｅ ａｒｅ ｓｏ ｍａｎｙ ｖａｒｉａｔｉｏｎｓ ａｎｄ ｐｏｓｓｉｂｉｌｉｔｉｅｓ ｔｈａｔ ｔｈｉｓ ｉｓ ｉｍｐｏｓｓｉｂｌｅ． What you need are just the concepts. Make sure both halves have some brood and resources and that the brood is together and that you account for the drift by either facing them to the old hive, moving them 2 miles away or shaking in some extra bees, or swapping locations in a few days to equalize. Any of these methods works fine.

>Tell me one thing,do you place them facing toward the old location or Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive ?

Both of the new hives to the old location that now has no hive. This is one of many methods to minimize the hives being unequal in population from drift.

>oy... this is complicated!

No. It's not. Just make sure they both have some brood and somewhat equal number of bees and if you anticipate drift shake some extra into the one that will drift away. Anymore I use all eight frame mediums, I do my splits when I have at least four boxes of bees and stores and I deal the boxes like cards. one for you and one for you onto two bottoms and put a top on each and walk away. I don't even look for brood or the queen. Ｔｈｅｙ ａｒｅ ｂｏｔｈ ｉｎ ａ ｎｅｗ ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ ｓｏ Ｉ ｄｏｎ’ｔ ｗｏｒｒｙ ａｂｏｕｔ ｄｒｉｆｔ．

＞..and all this time thought that a "Walk Away Split" was when one takes a hive, pulls out frames, brood, honey & pollen and puts them in another box, resulting in two boxes about even in brood, pollen and honey, fill up the empty spaces in each box with new frames with foundation (or not.) and then the Good Lord takes over and you get to........ walk away!

Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ．

＞I thought that splitting was done so that one did not have to get a ladder to go fetch a swarm in some tree somewhere.

Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ．

＞Yes one box will have a queen and one box will not, unless of course you kill the queen when you throw those frames around.

Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ．

＞But natural evolution will make life in the hive want to carry on, reduce the entrances in both boxes, it gives the bees a fair advantage in defending the hive, if there is enough honey and pollen you won't have to feed them.

Ｙｅｓ．

＞Yes one hive will be slower to get kicking again, 16 days to new queen, four to five days before she get her spermathica upgraded and then...she'll get to play for a couple of days, eggs not quite where they should be but she'll get the hang of it and start laying 12 to 15 hundred eggs a day...

＞Now you don't expect to harvest from either of those this year or do you?

Ｓｏｍｅｔｉｍｅｓ．

＞If you do, you'll notice that one is doing really good and one is doing not as well...harvest from the good one...

Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ．

Ｐersonally I like to wait until the warmer days of spring to harvest...that way they use what they need and you can have the rest...

Ｏｒ ｔｈｅ ｃｏｌｄ ｄａｙｓ ｏｆ ｆａｌｌ．．．

＞Again you take a good hive, split it and walk away...that is a walk away split.

Ｙｅｓ．

＞Where you put the hive...who cares?

Ｅｘａｃｔｌｙ． Ｔｈｅ ｏｎｌｙ ａｄｖａｎｔａｇｅ ｔｏ ｆａｃｉｎｇ ｔｈｅ ｔｗｏ ｔｏ ｔｈｅ ｏｌｄ ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ ｉｓ ｂｅｔｔｅｒ ｅｑｕａｌｉｚａｔｉｏｎ． But it's not that big of a deal one way or the other.

＞ front facing east west south or north...won't keep the bees from using that water proof shelter...2 inches, two miles.. again, up to you the bees don't care.

No, they won't.

> Yes the foragers get to go back to the original location...however, every day, 12 to 15 hundred new foragers emerge and find their way back to the hive where they came from that day...so split and walk away.

Good response. That is why i made the post comparing it too installing a new pacikage for the first time. I would imagine there should be a youtube video somewhere.

Another question-- of all i read (unless i missed it) there is no clear indication of when is the best time to do this- I know on the bush site there are very clear description of the types of splits and why one would do it but my question is timing....

My bees are just beginning to forage and bring back tree pollen over the last week. Temps are in the 50s with lows in the low 30s I am about to feed them a candy board with megabee to supplement.

I would imagine in about a month time might be a good time to split. I guess it really is hive dependent-- how many bees you have. If you are bursting with bees- then do a split. if you are still building up - wait a couple of weeks. It's all judgement.

Another simple question-- why couldnt hobby beek have a 3deep colony--ie huge colony-- will the bees swarm if they have plenty of space? I guess it is a matter of efficiency-- i guess a lot of the 3 deep hive will be filled with honey instead of brood so the beek may as well cull of the honey by using supers.....

I would imagine in about a month time might be a good time to split. I guess it really is hive dependent-- how many bees you have. If you are bursting with bees- then do a split. if you are still building up - wait a couple of weeks. It's all judgement.

Good judgment is right but some things that could help you decide. First, as you mentioned, is the hive large enough to split. Probably not a good idea to split a softball sized hive. I would say this is most important. Also, look for drones in your hive. If your hive is about where it should be drone wise, then your split shouldn't have a hard time raising a queen.

I'm not doing walk away splits this year. I'm going to split my only hive but raise my queen via Jenter first. I'll probably start the last week in April and have queens ready in May, if that gives you an idea as to when I'll be splitting (since we are both from PA).

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Another simple question-- why couldnt hobby beek have a 3deep colony--ie huge colony-- will the bees swarm if they have plenty of space? I guess it is a matter of efficiency-- i guess a lot of the 3 deep hive will be filled with honey instead of brood so the beek may as well cull of the honey by using supers....

If I understand your question and thinking, you are thinking of just having a hive of all deeps, not using a queen excluder, and just pulling honey from each of the boxes? This is an unlimited brood nest set up, used by many. I did that at one time but I don't like the method personally. Nothing wrong with it. Personal preference.

A special thanks to about three of you who went to a great extent to explain every detail. a thanks to those of you who posted bits and pieces I put together and came up with the best way to do splits. No thank to people who make little smart Alic remarks and try to start fire storms all the time.

I come to the conclusion,It makes no difference where or how you place splits as long as you don't place them in the middle of a 40 mile lake on a boat. It makes no difference as long as you put plenty of brood,new eggs,honey and bees in the split so they can get off to a good start. It makes no difference if the worker bees go back to the old hive.

Once again with your help ,I figured out the best way to make splits. In intend to be the best bee keeper any where.

Logged

Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

Acts2:37: Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 38: Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39: For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40: And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation

>Another question-- of all i read (unless i missed it) there is no clear indication of when is the best time to do this-

Because it's an art, not a science. You need enough bees (which will change by time of year) and enough stores (which is easiest during a flow) and enough time for the split to build up enough to get through the winter. Actually, if you read the FAQs at the bottom you will see things like "how early..." etc.

>Another simple question-- why couldnt hobby beek have a 3deep colony--ie huge colony-- will the bees swarm if they have plenty of space?